Citizenship and Immigration Canada announces citizenship week

This year is the 59th anniversary of Canadian citizenship.

Canada’s Citizenship Week is intended to encourage all Canadians to reflect on the value of citizenship, what it means to be Canadian and the rights, privileges and responsibilities of citizenship.

Prior to 1947 Canadians were considered British subjects who simply lived in Canada and only the Prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King became the first Canadian citizen that year as Canada became the first Commonwealth country to gain its own citizenship act. To date almost 5.7 million people have been granted Canadian citizenship.

Citizenship grants have been rising by 2% each year. In the year 2005, 2575 citizenship ceremonies were held across Canada and 196,068 individuals took the oath of citizenship.

The Honourable Monte Solberg, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, this week launched Canada’s Citizenship Week 2006 by taking part in a special citizenship ceremony to swear in 35 new Canadians.

“Citizenship Week is a time to celebrate our shared values as Canadians and recognize that as citizens, we have a responsibility to uphold these values,” said Minister Solberg. “I am honoured to launch this Citizenship Week by welcoming Canada's newest citizens. New Canadians make a significant social, economic and cultural contribution to the country, and they play a crucial role in building a better Canada.”

Citizenship Judge Suzanne Pinel presided over the ceremony, held at the Terry Fox Canadian Youth Centre, headquarters of Historica Encounters. Encounters is a one-week program of Canadian studies which brings together young Canadians from different backgrounds and regions to learn about one another and discover their country. The 110 young people participating in Historica Encounters attended this special ceremony.


Alice Daghavarian, Director of Immigration Services.

New law will require Canadians to have passports for travel to neighboring countries

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 requires that by January 1, 2008, travelers to and from the Caribbean, Bermuda, Panama, Mexico and Canada have a passport or other secure, accepted document to enter or re-enter the United States. In order to facilitate the implementation of this requirement, the Administration is proposing to complete it in phases following a proposed timeline, which will be published in the Federal Register in the near future.

In the proposed implementation plan, which is subject to a period of initial public comment, the Initiative will be rolled out in phases, providing as much advance notice as possible to the affected public to enable them to meet the terms of the new guidelines. The proposed timeline will be as follows:

• January 8, 2007 - Requirement applied to all air and sea travel to or from Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda.

• January 1, 2008 - Requirement extended to all land border crossings as well as air and sea travel.

This is a change from prior travel requirements and will affect all United States citizens entering the United States from countries within the Western Hemisphere who do not currently possess valid passports. This new requirement will also affect certain foreign nationals who currently are not required to present a passport to travel to the United States.

Most Canadian citizens, citizens of the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda, and to a lesser degree, Mexican citizens will be affected by the implementation of this requirement


Alice Daghavarian, Director of Immigration Services.

Canada attracting more skilled immigrants

Queen's University is one of Canada's leading universities, with an international reputation for scholarship, research, social purpose, spirit and diversity. Consistently ranked among the top universities in Canada, Queen's is known for its high quality and incomparable 24-hour learning environment.

The University was established by Royal Charter of Queen Victoria in 1841 - twenty-six years before Canadian confederation. Classes were first held in 1842. The earliest degree-granting institution in the united Province of Canada, Queen's has reflected and helped shape Canadian values and policies, educating many of the country's most notable political and cultural figures.

Professor Charles Beach told a U.S. Senate committee recently that the growing importance of education, business and work experience as admission standards to Canada has significantly raised the skill levels of the 230,000 immigrants who come to Canada annually.
The result is a group of new immigrants who are better educated and experienced, younger and more fluent in either English or French than the immigrant population as a whole.

The senators invited Dr. Beach's testimony as part of a debate on U.S. immigration policy driven by the large number of illegal immigrants there.

Only about 20 per cent of the U.S.'s legal immigrants -- one-third the level of Canada -- enter the country under independent or economic status based on rules that reward education, business and work experience and language fluency.

Some U.S. politicians are considering adopting a similar points system.

"Ironically, our findings have attracted more interest south of the border than from government officials in Ottawa," Dr. Beach said.

The study did not deal with the touchy issue of ensuring well-educated newcomers get jobs to match their skills once they are in the country.

Dr. Beach said in an interview this past summer that Canada has to do a better job of recognizing the credentials of foreign-born professionals and easing the transition to the Canadian job market.

"Some training, adjustment and wage subsidy programs were cut because of government deficits in mid-90s. I think that is a factor in the slower integration of some well-educated immigrants."

The study found that in 2000 those with university and post-graduate degrees jumped to 34 per cent of all immigrants from just eight per cent in 1980.

The portion of immigrants with a secondary school education dropped to 34 per cent from 59 per cent over the same period.

The proportion with some post-secondary or specialized training was flat at 16 per cent while the balance have little formal education.

The reason for the shift is that 59 per cent of all immigrants in 2000 entered under independent or economic status determined solely by a point system, up from 35 per cent in 1980.

The proportion who entered under family unification status dropped from 36 per cent to 27 per cent and those who entered under humanitarian or refugee status dropped even more, from 28 per cent to 13 per cent.

Dr. Beach, along with professor Alan Green of Queen's and professor Christopher Worswick of Carleton University, separating out the impact of business cycles and unemployment rates in Canada and the U.S.

"It appears that changing Canada's immigration policy to the point system had the desired effect of improving the quality of skill attributes of incoming immigrants," said Dr. Beach.

The point system has gone through many changes since it was introduced in 1967 and will likely change again to attract more skilled building and industrial tradespeople which are in short supply.

The study found that opening the door wider,had a small negative impact on the credentials of the whole immigrant group.

The average education of all immigrants dropped 2.6 per cent and the average age increased 1.7 per cent in years when the number of immigrants jumped by 100,000.

But increasing the portion of economic immigrants by 10 per cent, raised the education and language levels and reduced the average age of immigrants.


Alice Daghavarian, Director of Immigration Services.

Immigration Helps Canada's Population

Population census figures this summer combined with immigration and birth rate numbers indicate that Canada can accept a nearly unlimited number of immigrants, given current worldwide migration statistics.

Speaking at a one-day conference late this summer historian Ian Dowbiggin, a professor at the University of Prince Edward Island, said the government's top priority should be to introduce financial incentives for people to have children. He cited options ranging from hefty baby bonuses to tax reforms that end the situation where a family with a stay-at-home parent normally pays higher taxes than a double-income family making the same total salary.

The conference was sponsored by the Institute of Marriage and Family in Canada, created early this year as the research arm of Focus on the Family, a lobby group that has, among other things, campaigned against same-sex marriage. His speech was delivered on the heels of fresh warnings from Statistics Canada that the number of deaths in Canada will exceed the number of births by around 2030.

Canada's "birth dearth" (as he called it) promises to pose as many pressing challenges to policy-makers as global warming, and there is no time to waste in taking action to encourage people to have more children. He warned that any foot dragging would take an economic and social toll on the country.

Canadians are only slowly waking up to the policy implications of a birth rate of only 1.5 children for each woman on everything from health care and education to immigration and taxation. Like the debate about how to deal with climate change, however, it is picking up steam, he said.

He argued that immigration alone is unlikely to solve the looming problem of an aging population, especially given the security concerns and anti-immigrant sentiments that have emerged in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, environment.

If current trends continue, there will be more people in Canada in 2017 over the age of 65 than under the age of 15.

"Many experts predict that aging national populations will boost support for the rationing of health care resources and the legalization of euthanasia, either in the form of physician-assisted suicide or voluntary lethal injection," said Mr. Dowbiggin, who is writing Where Have All the Babies Gone, a book exploring the causes and impact of declining birth rates in the world.

A Statistics Canada report said the rate of natural population increase -- excess of births over deaths -- has stabilized in recent years following a long-term decline, and was at 3.3 per 1,000 over the past year, the decline is projected to resume.

Meanwhile, so far this decade, net immigration has accounted for 60% of the population growth, up from 46.2% a decade earlier, the report said.

Between April 2005 and April 2006, Canada went from a population of 32.2 million to a population of 32.5 million. An extremely aggressive recruitment effort by the government for skilled foreign workers is credited for a large segment of that increase, as well as a very stable and solid economy.

There is still plenty of room in Canada. As the second largest country in the world, just larger than the United States and about half the size of Russia, it has only about one tenth the population of the U.S., which will see its 300 millionth resident by the end of this month.


Alice Daghavarian, Director of Immigration Services.